“Moving out?” Sirius scratched his head and shook the last of the sleep from his head. “Look, I’m not coming. I’m going to save my sister if it kills me.”
“It will. If you go alone.”
Sirius looked around. Some of the youths had dressed themselves in strange suits of rags, long metal claws attached to the ends of their fingers as savage weaponry. They stared at him through their horrific masks. He remembered the horror stories that had cropped up recently, of many there had been before them, but in the last four years monsters from the Sickening with wide eyes and long, click-clacking claws had been fabled of in Ulead. He wondered what the citizens would think if they knew these “monsters” had been skulking right beneath them all this time. Anyone that hadn’t dressed like abominations from the wastes had strapped makeshift scrap armor to themselves and were readying stolen vibro spears. Sirius’ eyes widened.
“You want to attack the halls of the harvested?”
“Not attack. Infiltrate.” Tyna pushed various pieces of salvage and detritus from one of the crates around the fire, spreading out an ancient map. It seemed to be detailing the network of tunnels that they were currently squatting in, with other lines criss-crossing each other in different colors. She pointed to a circle, faded lettering slightly scratched out. Sirius, not able to read, shrugged at her.
“I don’t get it.”
“This is the halls, Sirius,” Tyna said seriously. “This is where your sister and the other kids are being kept. The entrance into these tunnels from the streets was caved in years ago, but we can get to the citadel through these tunnels. But I have to tell you, they’re heavily guarded. Right now it’s about midnight, so they won’t be being visited by their families, but there’s guards on every door.”
“How do you know all this?” Sirius asked, cocking his head. She shrugged.
“My father spent some time on that job during last harvest. He used to talk a lot at the dinner table. The moron.” She smirked. “If we can get into the main chamber, we might be lucky and they might just be alone. Apparently, it’s a paradise in there. They’re allowed to do whatever they want. Except leave, of course.”
Sirius shuddered.
“So what do we do if they catch us?”
Tyna gave another sly smile and brandished her weapon.
“Listen, us lofty Airborn have our uses. I was trained to use one of these from birth.” She threw one to Sirius, which he caught, but only barely. It was so heavy in his hands he could barely swing it with any sort of deftness, but his time working in the chop shop had made him strong even if his muscles did ache and protest. But it just didn’t… feel right.
“Don’t you have anything else?” Sirius asked sheepishly. “I don’t think I can use this. Can’t I have something I can just… swing?” He scanned the small crowd for a moment, before his eyes settled on one girl who had an enormous pole hanging at one side, a gnarled lump of concrete jutting with rusting metal at its end. “Something like that.”
“Here.” Sirius once again had to defend himself from another flying weapon. He caught something in his hand and looked it over.
“Wait… this has actually been made.”
“Fen is our weapon smith.” Tyna pointed to an androgynous-looking figure with half their long brown hair shaved to a point. Sirius nodded at them before looking the weapon over. It was crude work, the cudgel made out of beaten scrap steel with the evil bumps and indents that would make the impact all the more devastating. He swung it around a few times.
“Get that in an Airborn’s guard and he won’t be able to do a spirit-damned thing about it,” Fen told him with a grin. He could see when they did so that they’d filed each of their teeth to a point. He felt like shuddering again, but thought that it might be bad manners.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “But why are you all doing this for me? I don’t get it.”
“There’s a lot of things you don’t get, aren’t there?” Tyna responded tartly. “Look, we’ve been talking. We think you’ve got something that a lot of us have been lacking, and the reason why nothing’s changed and kids are still being stolen and we have to live down here in the dark.”
“And what’s that?”
She swept the end of the spear upwards to hit him lightly between the legs. The impact still knocked the wind out of him and made him grab at himself, wheezing.
“Those,” she snickered, to a raucous round of laughter from the rest of the group. Even Sirius managed a small smile, cheeks flaring slightly at being the center of attention. That wasn’t something that tended to happen… at least, not with him being hit in the unmentionables lightly or laughing with the people that did it. “It’s a stupid idea. It could get us all killed. But at this point, it’s only a matter of time before they find out where we are and flush us out like rats. Once we’ve got everyone… then we can take our chances in the Sickening. There’ll be too many to keep down here. I know it’s risky, but…”
“What if I told you that we might not have to?” Sirius said carefully. There was a hush.
“What do you mean?”
“It sounds crazy. But I’ve heard things. About a town.”
“What’s a town?”
Sirius turned to the posers of so many questions and gave them a look. The culprit, a skinny lad done up in mask and claws, shuffled awkwardly. “Sorry.”
“A town is like a small city. It’s a place where people used to live before we were all in a city. You know, when there were more people,” Tyna put in helpfully. “But I thought there was nothing out there. Pandemia is all that’s left. Isn’t it?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know for sure, but has anyone ever heard anything about the uprising?” He was met with mostly blank stares, but one smaller Airborn kid piped up.
“My grand-dad talks a lot about it. He’s in gaol right now for taking his tunic off and yelling by the fountain again.”
“That’s your granddad?”
“Is that who you heard this from? Ziggy’s grandfather? I hate to break it to you,” Fen snickered, “but that guy is crazy.”
“It’s not crazy. My grandma used to talk about it too, but she said we mustn’t say anything outside the house,” another voice sounded. Sirius looked to Tyna, giving a shrug.
“From what I’ve heard, some people made it out of the city to get to this town. They wanted to get away from the way things are done here too. And the Skyborn covered it up so that nobody else would get the same idea. I’ve heard this town has a water source. A real water source. And have you noticed how the allowances have gone down more and more? Can anyone remember the last time it rained?” There was an uncomfortable silence. “I’m guessing you’ve all been stealing water to stay alive down here. Maybe even tapping into the pipes. But what happens when the water runs out?”
“The water won’t run out. The spirits put it there for us.”
“And the spirits can take it away.” Tyna’s sister stepped forward, pulling her hood down. Sirius blinked rapidly when long, dark braids threaded with colorful strips of fabric and adorned with trinkets of silver were revealed. This girl was an acolyte of the temple of air. A child born with a direct connection to the will of those spirits, and the ability to reach out to the others. To find one here was almost unbelievable, in this rag-tag group of rebels. But maybe, just maybe, this meant that the spirits were on their side.
At least some of them.
“Right. It will be gone eventually. They don’t want us to know that, because they want to keep us here, keeping them alive for as long as possible. But if we find this place, these people that managed to get away so long ago, then we could come back. We could take our families with us.”
“What if the people who got away don’t want us there?” Tyna pointed out, one brow raised. “We will have killed half of us getting across the desert for nothing.”
“You think that the descendants of the people that stood up and turned their backs on the Skyborn and walked
away aren’t going to welcome a group of kids that want to do the same?” Sirius asked. “Look, I know it’s a risk, and I’m not asking anyone to come with me. But that’s where my sister and I are going when I get her out of there. If you want to take your chances in the Sickening, believe me, I reckoned I was going to do it. But I was expecting to die. The desert might just be our only chance of living. And all we need to do is follow the setting sun.”
Tyna turned to the company, scanning the people around her. Her sharp eyes flickered with determination, a decision made.
“Who feels like a walk in the desert, then?” she gave a sly grin. “I won’t make any of you come with us. But if what Sirius says is true, then we’ve got as good a chance out there as we do here. I say we do this. I say we save our sisters and brothers, and we find a new place. Where we’re all equal. And not a single one of us will have to be beaten or beat each other again.”
It was agreed. “Then we need another day.”
“What do you mean?!” Sirius barked suddenly. “The Harvest is the day after tomorrow!”
“You really think we can just walk off into the desert with no preparation, no supplies?” Tyna looked at him from under raised brows. “We’ll need water. We’ll need food. How far away is this place supposed to be?”
“Fifty miles. Does anyone have any idea… how far that takes to walk?” Sirius scratched his head. “Ulead is a mile across. Has anyone ever measured how long it takes to get to one side or the other?”
“My labor was message delivery,” Ziggy chirped. “Took me about twenty minutes if I really got a move on.”
“Can anyone here do their numbers?” Sirius asked, a little embarrassed that it couldn’t be him to work it out.
“That’s less than a day and a night, if we don’t rest,” Tyna cut in, “which we will, for sure, but we’re going to need to be prepared for them to come after us. If they figure out what we’re trying to do. Hell, we’ve been brought up to see the desert as nothing more than a quick death. They could have been hiding a sanctuary from us all this time.”
It was a sobering thought, despite the tinge of hope that now hung over the congregation.
Tyna pulled Sirius aside once they had dispersed to ready themselves, some preparing to come along, some masterminding things such as sleds that would make it possible for one or two people to drag supplies across miles of sand. Talented laborers and fighters they seemed to be to Sirius, but Tyna’s face was a mask of seriousness.
“Sirius. I need to speak to you.” She tugged his arm off to one side before he could shake her off out of instinct. Damn, her grip was strong.
“Yeah? Why?” he asked, not meaning to sound nearly as sullen as he did. Tyna took a deep breath.
“You got any idea what we’ll do if we get out there and things aren’t as you say they are?”
“Might be. I’m taking a gamble just as much as anyone else, you know.”
“I know, I know. But… the thing is, I don’t have a plan. I haven’t the first idea what we’re going to do if this place doesn’t exist. If we find ourselves standing out in the desert with nowhere to go even to hide from the sun. I was trained as a city guardsman; one of the trials was to be left out in the desert about ten miles in, to see how you’d fare. Most of the kids ended up having to be picked up by vehicles. A boy actually died during my trials. It was… hell.” She lowered her voice. “What I’m saying is that these kids haven’t got anything else or anywhere else. We’ve been out into the Sickening, the parts you can stay in for more than five minutes without losing your hair almost straight away, and there’s nothing out there. Just a couple of feral people ready to rip your throat out as soon as look at you, rubble, and Sickness.”
“What are you trying to tell me?” Sirius cocked his head. Tyna looked over to her sister, who was daubing little symbols onto the foreheads of her comrades, smiling serenely.
“I don’t know. I just hoped that you had a plan. But I know that you know that if this turns out to be nothing… we’re all gonna die anyway.”
“We’re all gonna die if we stay. As far as I see it, we don’t have much of a choice. Think of it more like that, and you’ll feel better,” the tall boy replied gruffly. She shot him a weak smile.
“You’re right. We have to focus on this raid. We’ve never done anything like this before, you know. Stealing enough to feed a couple of us at a time, that’s something. But twenty-five people’s worth of supplies for a two-day hike in the desert…” she shook her head. “I probably shouldn’t doubt them. But I’m afraid for them.”
“Why are you telling me this? I’ve got nothing to do with any of you,” Sirius asked, inquisitive rather than demanding. “What makes my word mean so much?”
“You ever seen any teacher hold the attention of twenty-five kids the way you just did?” the girl replied tartly. Sirius paused for a moment. “See? Now listen. The plan is to use the tunnels to get under the greenhouses.” She circled a small area on her map. It was as though she had the entirety of Ulead memorized, looking up from the depths below. “Not the food stores or distribution center. The guards haven’t seen any action since they were given that duty, but it doesn’t mean they’re not efficiently trained soldiers. The greenhouses are a better target because hardly anyone guards them. Just a couple of Airborn that make sure the farmers are doing their jobs.” Sirius blinked, a flash of memory coming to him of his mother, returning home from her day’s labor, with battered arms and bruised eyes because one of the guards had lost his temper with how slowly she was picking fruit. She was several months pregnant with Denna at the time.
“Alright then. The greenhouses.” He nodded curtly in agreement. “We’ll need a distraction to get inside.”
“No need. The greenhouses were built over an old street. There’s ways up and out of the tunnels to the surface. We just have to find them.”
“Can you?”
She gave him another incredulous look. It made his gut twist and his face burn every time she did. This Airborn girl who seemed to know so many things that were a mystery to him.
“Of course I can.”
And so it transpired that a rag-tag group of five of the best and fastest that the Missing Ones could offer made their way from the enormous chamber labeled in ancient script as the “Metro Station” as Tyna called it, and into the swallowing darkness that the tunnels provided. Lamps that ran on the mysterious substance that the Airborn scientists and engineers closely guarded the secret to making barely lit the area, and the terrain was craggy and dangerous. Not only were there great rivets in the earth where more of these enormous vehicles lay like felled beats, but the concrete had in places rotted away to reveal rusted tangles of iron that ended in sharp spikes. It was pitch black, and the light of the lantern cast long, deep black shadows that moved as they did as though following them.
It seemed as though they would walk forever alongside these forgotten underground roads, every so often slipping stepping down from the platform to walk along the tracks instead.
“So much metal.” Sirius murmured after the tenth time stubbing his toe. “Why do the counselors just leave it all down here? Surely this could all be used?”
“You know what they’re like about things from the old world. The more we use old technology, the more we run the risk of committing the sins that got the world like this in the first place.” Tyna replied as they were closely followed by her five chosen warriors. Sirius scratched his head.
“You ever thought what it might have been like?” he asked. “I always wanted to ask the priest at the temple of earth, but he seemed like he’d beat me if I tried.”
“I’ve read books. There isn’t a lot about it that doesn’t just… you know. Talk about the sins of our ancestors. But I’ve heard that there were places that were really green. Like the greenhouses and the sky gardens, but greener and bigger. And there were so many more trees than just twelve in the world. Like, enough to cover hundreds and hundreds of miles. Diffe
rent types, too.”
Sirius couldn’t imagine it, but things got even weirder. “And they say that somewhere, there’s still massive pools of water that cover most of everything that exists. And that when the spirits came to punish our ancestors, they made the water rise so it drowned everyone who lived at the edges of it.”
“Why hasn’t anyone tried to find this water if we’re so desperate for it?” Sirius asked, a little unbelieving. Tyna shrugged in the gloomy green light cast by the lantern.
“Maybe because it’s like that now.” A dip downwards in the tunnels lead their path alongside stagnant, stinking water. Sirius pulled the neckline of his tunic over his nose and gagged.
“Spirits, that’s disgusting,” he murmured. “Nobody touch that, it might Sicken you.”
“Don’t need to tell us twice,” Ziggy chirped. As they were making their careful way along the path, Sirius could have sworn that he heard a small splash and a slight, tangible hiss in the dark. He thought for a moment about reporting it to Tyna, but he imagined her and the others laughing at him for being scared, and held his tongue.
After what seemed like forever, they finally came to the foot of a crude ladder that seemed to stretch upwards to nothingness until the sky ended. Tyna passed Sirius the lamp as she tightened the gear dotted over her body and swinging from straps.
“Tie this to the back of my belt,” she said to Sirius, who obeyed without question. She took the first rung and started to climb. “Smallest to largest, follow me,” she called down, which put Sirius at the back. “Don’t make a sound once you’re past this point. Don’t want to let on that we’re coming. Let’s go.”
They followed her up, up towards the surface. She stopped once her head knocked against solid metal, grunting slightly as both wiry arms went up and started working against whatever it was in her way.
“What’s going on?” Sirius whispered.
“Can’t… move it…” she grunted, bracing her shoulder against it. “Don’t know… what it…” before she could finish her sentence, a squeak of metal-on-metal echoed all the way down the tunnel below them and light, however dim, seared their eyes. Tyna peered out and killed the lamp, hazel eyes narrowed for a moment, before lifting the metal disk completely and climbing out of the hole. Her six companions did the same.
Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction: The Missing Ones: A Dystopian Adventure Page 4